application of native speaker models for identifying deviations in rhetorical moves in non-native speaker manuscripts

Introduction: explicit teaching of generic conventions of a text genre, usually extracted from native-speaker (ns) manuscripts, has long been emphasized in the teaching of academic writing inenglish for specific purposes (henceforthesp) classes, both in theory and practice. while consciousness-raising about rhetorical structure can be instrumental to non-native speakers(nns), it has to be admitted that most works done in the field of esp have tended to focus almost exclusively on native-speaker (ns) productions, giving scant attention to non-native speaker (nns) manuscripts. that is, having outlined established norms for good writing on the basis of ns productions, few have been inclined to provide a descriptive account of nns attempts at trying to produce a research article (ra) in english. that is what we have tried to do in the present research. methods: we randomly selected 20 ras in dentistry and used two well-established models for results and discussion sections to try to describe the move structure of these articles and show the points of divergence from the established norms. results: the results pointed to significant divergences that could seriously compromise the quality of an ra. conclusion: it is believed that the insights gained on the deviations in nns manuscripts could prove very useful in designing syllabi for esp classes.